MOLDOVA

Republic of Moldova

Republica Moldoveneasca

COUNTRY OVERVIEW

LOCATION AND SIZE.

Located in southeastern Europe and bordered on the west by Romania and
on all other sides by Ukraine, landlocked Moldova has an area of 33,843
square kilometers (13,067 square miles), making it slightly larger than
Maryland. Moldova's border totals 1,389 kilometers (864 miles).
The capital, Chişina˘u, is situated in its central part.

The portion of the country that lays east of the Nistru River is known
as the Transnistria. Populated primarily by Slavs and economically and
culturally oriented toward the Ukraine, the Transnistria has been in
revolt against the Moldovan majority in the country (see below).

POPULATION.

The population of Moldova was 4,430,654 in 2000 and its average density
was 129.1 inhabitants per square kilometer (334 per square mile) in
1994. In 2000, the birth rate was 12.86 per 1,000 population, while the
death rate equaled 12.58 per 1,000. With a net migration rate of-0.31
per 1,000 and a fertility rate of 1.63 children born per woman, the
population growth rate was about zero in 2000. Over the 1990s, the
population declined because of net economic
emigration
.

Moldova's population is youthful by European standards, with 23
percent below the age of 14 and 10 percent older than 65. Ethnic
Moldovans (Romanians) account for 64.5 percent of the population,
Ukrainians for 13.8 percent, Russians for 13 percent, Gagauz (a
Turkic-speaking people of Christian faith) for 3.5 percent, Bulgarians
for 2 percent, Jews for 1.5 percent, and other groups for 1.7 percent,
according to 1989 estimates. In the early 1990s, interethnic violence
occurred between the Moldovans and the Slavic majority in the
Transnistria region (east of the Nistru [Dniester] River, with a
population of 750,000) and the Gagauz in the country's south. The
official language is Moldovan (Romanian) but Russian is widely spoken
and is the second official language in Transnistria. About 98.5 percent
of the population belong to the Orthodox Church. Moldova is
predominantly rural, with about 54 percent of the population living
mostly in large villages in 1999. The population in the capital of
Chişina˘u was 667,000 in 1992; other major cities include
Tiraspol and Tighina (Bender) in the east, and Balti in the north.